The parallels with the last time England went to Australia looking for a
fourth successive series victory 55 years ago were remarkable

Amazing how everything in cricket changes, and yet stays almost exactly the same.

From the moment in mid-September that England announced a very large squad – 17 plus Tim Bresnan – there were exact parallels between this tour and the last time that England went to Australia on the back of three successive wins in Ashes series in 1958-59, when they were widely expected to make it a fourth.

• England’s top order could not score enough runs against Australia’s pace bowling led by a left-armer, partly because they were unaccustomed to this angle of attack. Alan Davidson and Ian Meckiff took 41 wickets between them in 1958-59, and while Davidson pitched the ball up and swung it, Meckiff banged it in – before being banned for throwing. Mitchell Johnson, in taking 37 wickets, did both, legally.

• England’s top order scored too slowly as well as insufficiently, so there was no platform for the middle-order strokeplayers – on this tour Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell, in 1958-59 Peter May and Colin Cowdrey. In this series none of England’s batsmen scored at 50 runs per 100 balls, whereas all of Australia’s did, except for Chris Rogers and his strike-rate was 48.9.

• England’s wicketkeeper lost form with bat and gloves, and played only three Tests, robbing the side of their long-time fulcrum: Matt Prior on this tour, Godfrey Evans on the earlier one. In both cases the whole chemistry of the side was upset without a No7 to marshal the tail, and without the regular keeper to jolly them along in the field.

• England’s off-spinner, who had won them the previous home series, lost impact and heart. Graeme Swann retired after three Tests in which he took seven wickets. Jim Laker took 15 wickets in four Tests and was accused of pulling out of the Adelaide Test, the best pitch for spinners, for inadequate reasons. Jack Fingleton, fairest of Australian critics, said that if Laker with his sore spinning finger could manage to bowl 5,000 balls in a five-month English season, he should have been able to manage 2,000 balls on a five-month Australian tour.

• One of England’s main fast bowlers was over the hill and selected on reputation, for what he had done on the previous tour of Australia: Frank Tyson took three wickets in 1958-59, and Chris Tremlett took four on this tour. Yorkshire’s pace bowler did not live up to his billing either: Fred Trueman took nine wickets in 1958-59, Tim Bresnan five in two Tests this time. Lancashire’s seamer did OK: Brian Statham took 12 wickets in four Tests, James Anderson 14 in five.

What could England have done differently with the wisdom of hindsight, if they had sought more actively to avoid these parallels repeating themselves?

Firstly, they should have encouraged Michael Carberry to attack the bowling more, as neither Alastair Cook, nor Jonathan Trott, nor Joe Root had the game to do so. After Australia had scored 295 in their first innings in Brisbane, the decisive passage of play came when England reached 80 for two relatively comfortably, even though Cook had been out caught (driving at Ryan Harris) and Trott had suffered his first traumatic dismissal at the hands of Johnson.

Carberry had nicely reached 40 off 88 balls. Then Lyon came on, and he did not score another run off his last 25 balls before being dismissed by Johnson.

It was primarily Pietersen’s role to keep the innings moving but he got himself out by clipping to midwicket: 82 for three. Easy to say, of course, that Carberry should have gone after Lyon, just as David Warner had gone after Swann on the opening day. But it was Lyon, still able to keep a close field, who nipped in to dismiss Ian Bell and Matt Prior with bat-pad catches. When Carberry went too, England were 91 for eight, their aura as Ashes holders destroyed, the series shaped.

As for Swann, if central contracts incentivised winning more, might he have seen out the series? Rogers broke his leash when Swann retired, scoring liberated hundreds in Melbourne and Sydney. If England had been able to set Australia 300 to win in the fourth Test, not 231, with Swann to bowl; or if England had batted first in Sydney and been able to set Australia any sort of target on a lively turner, then 5-0 might have been averted.

Finally, if Steve Finn had been picked in Brisbane, because Tremlett was not on the tour, he and Broad might have roughed up Australia’s tailenders as Australia’s roughed up England’s. Remember how Michael Clarke was bounced out by Broad on the opening day? But there was nobody else to keep the heat on, whereas Johnson had Harris and Peter Siddle to sustain the bombardment.

Yes, the overall result would surely not have been different if England had averted these parallels, but it might not have been 5-0.